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Eliphaz is quiet throughout Job's lamentation. Such bitterness was to be expected. But, on hearing Job's defense, (3:26), Eliphaz can hold his peace no longer. Clearly he has been quietly trying to reason out why Job is being punished? He naturally assumes that this great torment can only be punishment for some incredible sin hidden from the gathered friends. He begins gingerly, begging Job's patience with him, complementing Job's righteousness, but quickly proceeds to imply that Job can dish it out, but he can't take it (4:5).
Eliphaz seemed a sympathetic friend until he opened his mouth. He suggests that since Job encourages others who are troubled, why does he not encourage himself (4:3-5). Eliphaz cannot conceive of Job's difficulties being anything but a result of some sin. He is baffled that Job doesn't deal with it quickly. “Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways” (4:6)? “Who ever perished, being innocent?” (4:7), Eliphaz reminds Job, he will reap what he sows (4:8). Even the lion cannot withstand God, Eliphaz warns (4:10-11).
“Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees,” (4:4). Job was one to encourage a person who was troubled or oppressed. The weak knees aren't arthritic knees, but those which are bowed under by a burden of guilt and the desire for sinful pleasures. Eliphaz takes note of this and suggests, “But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest” (4:5). There is an indignation to his tone. “Physician heal thyself.”
The approach that Eliphaz should be taking is to emulate Job and bring comfort to him. Instead of presumptive indignation, he could ask Job if he knows of a reason for this suffering. He could pray for Job's relief or ask for an explanation from God. He could offer to bring cool water or some other relief. He could make an atonement sacrifice on Job's behalf. There are many things that Eliphaz could do that would be loving and godly. But this is not what he does. Eliphaz condemns Job, not to help Job, as he wishes Job to believe, but to separate himself from Job and whatever curse Job is under.
“Is not this thy fear, thy confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?” (4:6). This is one of those difficult passages. Read it in Young's Literal Translation: “Is not thy reverence thy confidence? Thy hope–the perfection of thy ways?” (4:6, Young's Literal Translation). The NASB may be more readable: “Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?” (4:6, NASB). The implication is that Job has lost his source of strength, his fear of God; and that he has departed from the righteous path, so his hopes are cut off. Without having any example to produce, Eliphaz strongly insinuates that Job has turned from God to sin.
Eliphaz projects self-confidence based upon a firm doctrine of divine justice. He is depending on his own reason based on creed in an unreasonable situation that defies his dogma. He has veered into unreality because his doctrine will allow no other path. Job is clearly guilty of sin because he suffers and only the guilty suffer. “Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?” (4:7). How often have we fabricated reasons out of thin air? Eliphaz will abuse Job for several chapters before he is humbled by God.
Like Job, the three friends equate calamity with sin. Naturally assuming that God is upset with Job, Eliphaz steps back from Job to scold him. There is a repulsive quality to this distancing, as it is based on the assumptions by Eliphaz that he would not do whatever Job has done, but if he had he would immediately deal with it correctly.
Eliphaz is viewing Job's situation from the standpoint of what he knows and believes. His views have an unyielding rigidity to them, which leave no room for understanding or empathizing with Job and make Eliphaz all too certain of himself. He takes a superior tone, “Remember, I pray thee–” (4:7). Eliphaz places his self as authority: “even as I have seen” (4:8). Christians often take this high tone in evangelism or pseudo-evangelism. “The pseudo-evangelical line is that you must be on watch all the time and lose no opportunity of speaking to people, and this attitude is apt to produce the superior person. It may be a noble enough point of view, but it produces the wrong kind of character. It does not produce a disciple of Jesus, but too often the kind of person who smells of gunpowder and people are afraid of meeting him” (Chambers 1990, 36).
None of the characters in this drama outside of God and Satan (even Satan is arguably being hoodwinked) understand what is going on. They all speak out of their passion and ignorance. God, we will see, is not terribly concerned that Job is questioning him, but the vehemence with which the three friends begin to accuse Job does anger God (42:7). “Job's friends were in the right place when they sat with him dumbfounded for seven days; they were much nearer to God then than afterwards. As soon as they took up the club for God, they took on a religious pose, lost touch with the reality of actual experience, and ended in being bombastic” (Chambers 1990, 85). The three friends have lost touch with God and instead jump to the side of where they imagine God to be. Most foolish of all, they presume to condemn Job on behalf of God when in fact they have no idea what God is doing or why.
Eliphaz claims that he has had a vision of the night or dream, which he applies to Job (4:12-21). According to his telling of it, the vision produced a dramatic effect in him. “Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up” (4:14-15). Barnes compares this vision, not to prophetic visions, but to ghostly apparitions as ‘the Spirit of Loda’ and the ghost of Hamlet's father (Barnes, note on 4:13). While Eliphaz likens the vision to an angelic visitation, his reaction bears resemblance to ghostly visitation of Hamlet: “How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale: Is not this something more than fantasy?” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1).
Eliphaz is sure that he has had a special prophetic dream con-cerning Job, and affirming his own religious authority. In this vision, a shadowy figure asks if a man can question God (4:17)? Mortal man, says the vision, is insignificant to God, cast aside without regard. While Eliphaz seems convinced that this is an angelic visitation (5:1), that this is an angel sent from God, this shadowy figure is accusing God of not caring the least for humankind (4:17-21). We have no more significance to God than a moth, the night visitor declares, and we die feeble and senile, a sure sign of God's indifference.
Satan has already accused Job before God, now he uses this vision to accuse God, while pretending to be an emissary of God. The Psalms are full of passages which extoll how much care and concern God has for us (Ps. 23 is a well known example; also: Ps. 32:14-15), even to the numbering of every hair on our heads (Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7). God will try to show this to Job in chapter 39.
This shadowy figure depicts ‘mortal man’ (4:17) as figures made in clay and rooted in the dust (4:19). ‘Enôsh’, translated here as ‘mortal man’ indicates a lesser person. According to Barnes, ‘enôsh’ “is usually applied to the lower classes or ranks of people. The common opinion in regard to this word is, that it is derived from ânash, to be sick, or ill at ease; and then desperate, or incurable–as of a disease or wound” (Barnes, note on 4:17). In every way this description tries to draw the picture of humankind away from the breath placed in him and down to the base substance of existence. Eliphaz, enthralled with his vision, repeats the message as if it were the word of God. Eliphaz has become Satan's tool to further discourage and dishearten Job.
All too often, Christians fail to carefully analyze what is presented to them as being from the Holy Spirit or from spiritual authority. Bizarre demonic manifestations have passed as “gifts of the spirit”. Christian television regularly airs heresy which sounds true, but is antithetical to the Bible. Pastors preach from a wide range of sources outside of the gospel, without analyzing the message. Paul was forced to become ever conscious of deceitful Christians: “what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion... For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:13).
But beyond blatant heresies, it is also often the case that a true word, out of season, is destructive weapon. Much of what Eliphaz and the other friends have to say to Job is very true but horribly ‘out of season’. It is not unusual to hear a pastor preaching from one of these monologues in the book of Job without noting that the speaker is soon to be rebuked by God. While the things they say may be true in general, their application here is suspect.
This material forms a narrative. The speeches are not gospel in the usual sense of the term. The speeches of the three friends are condemned by God (42:7). The speech of Elihu at the end contains blatant misquotes; so, despite a lack of mention by God, I would treat his words with a similar suspicion. Job is not condemned for speaking falsehoods, but he is condemned for “words without knowledge” (38:2). This leaves only the opening and closing descriptions and God's speeches with the weight of the gospel. However, the narrative itself is a tool of God's instruction. The story is itself the gospel message.
Having digressed a bit, let's get back to Eliphaz. He has assumed the role of leadership among the three friends. He is definitely the most verbose of the three and he is just getting warmed up:
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